This mostly tipped past what I thought would be typical of a story like this with the characters being more earnest and interesting than expected. Unlike most, more thriller-esk takes on pandemic books, the reader is placed in a pretty isolated and limited perspective. We really don’t know more than the few main characters we follow from start to finish. There is no insight from outsiders gleaned, outside of the characters directly receiving the information verbally. It makes for an effective, more nuanced narrative of something that somewhat stretches incredulity—especially when you simply have to suspend disbelief, as no information is ever forthcoming about the world.

This also didn’t blow me away like some readers though. The plot is pretty much exactly what you’d expect. I’m not sure a surprising event really occurs, aside from a few character interactions that feel psychologically driven. Plot wise, it’s pretty close to not much happens and it’s slow paced with these beats.

3.5 rounded up

Excellent narration and a layered, sumptuous in prose, tight short story. I thought it was very clever and still quite relevant. Even the start, where the husband doesn’t really believe there’s anything wrong with her, yet recommends doing such and such. I’ve had numerous friends go through years of pain and exhaustion in their long, long journey to get diagnosed with Fibromyalgia. Coupled with the intertextuality of the wallpaper, its patterning, and other thematics, it becomes something truly great. No wonder it’s a classic.

It’s a bit hard to rate this, since I’ve actually watched the excellent tv show adaptation first. But the prose are great, the story interesting—even more so because I’m Canadian and this is a story set there, and of some historical interest and importance.

The most interesting thing, for me, was the ending, which I think departs from the show quite a bit. Or I’m just remembering wrong, which is quite possible. Either way, I hadn’t known the last part, as to what became of Grace herself, so I was glad to get the complete picture. I think the show might have attempted a lot more mystery.

There are some contrivances you would have expected to be fictitious, but apparently much of it is close to record, or what people had said and was recorded. You never really know all of the things you’d know in a work of fiction like this. At least, usually, I’d say. Some withhold that kind of catharsis, but generally not historical crime and mysteries, I’ve found. But I found it all pretty interesting, though maybe how it was told propelled me along. And the narrator was excellent on audible.

This was an unexpected pleasure. Because of when it’s written and I knew the setting was noir cyberpunk set in a marginalized community with trans people, I’ve kind of been putting it off, assuming it would be… let’s say, outdated. Actually, it is, of course in some ways, ie referring to people as transsexuals and what not. But in other ways it gets things right about writing that kind of community. On the other other hand, it’s definitely another book about trans people being murdered.

So, it’s by no means perfect. The idea of “skill jockeying” was something this era of writing was particularly enamoured with as well. Rather than the memory train we are currently in, lived experience and embodied experience are not quite reached. Instead, people can plug-and-play knowledge (such as languages) or whole personalities and training. Our main man, as they typically are, is against this modification. And is a not-really-practicing Muslim engrained in the area of town akin to a red light district slash, where lots of descendants of immigrants or direct immigrants are. Crime is rampant. You’re either a mark or a hustler, etc. etc..

He isn’t particularly interested in finding out who is being murdered until the people being killed are people he knows. Along the way he has to choose how he will get agency in order to do so, thereby confronting his views of technology and self preservation.

All steeped in noir. It’s very well done, I think. I actually liked the ending quite a bit and was surprised with how nuanced each plot beat became. I wouldn’t at all mind continuing with the series. As to if it’s actually cyberpunk… I think so. High tech low life. It nails the requirements aspects. Ironically more so than some others labelled as such, like Stephenson’s early 00s, such as Cryptonomicon.

This actually gets fairly interesting. I didn’t expect for it to navigate to where it’s not just the same old battles and its seeming inability to confront meaningfully the graphic depictions of peoples being subjugated. But it seems to be going toward doing exactly that, less the violence.

It does make more a somewhat slow storyline and the annoying tonal shifts sometimes still happen. But it’s much more interesting and the art is still fantastic. A warrior who becomes a slave, attempting to find a reason to go on without revenge driving him, still has to reckon with his past. It’s not exactly new ground but I appreciate it going in this direction. Especially because the only inkling of it was with his father, but that was basically a blip, compared to the massive amounts of Vikings killing and raping and pillaging and relying on the revenge angle to keep things interesting.

This was a pretty fun spy fiction meets will-they-won’t-they between a young woman burglar and her… handler? I guess. As a job goes south and she’s pressed into service, she begins to find reasons of her own to stick around and help the war effort in an unusual way.

It’s pretty good at knowing when to subvert tropes and when to use them. The writing moves along at a good pace. It’s not particularly evocative or interesting at a prose level, very much feeling like commercial fiction, but there’s nothing wrong with that. It clearly knows what it’s doing and executing on that.

There was a section that felt a bit clumsy in its choreography and I didn’t actually care about the final twist concerning the traitor. There’s a back and forth between them when they’re described as basically fighting for their lives, quite unconvincing. Pretty hard to have a conversation while you’re tangled up and being throttled.

Otherwise it was a good time. Better than expected.

This is such a breath of fresh air. Rather than focusing on fights, instead this is about a long-lived elf who experiences time, and therefor life, much differently than the companions she’d made on a journey to fight and destroy a demon king. Over the course of decades, this first volume takes place after that, and we begin to see and understand how she approaches life and relationships.

I would call this “cozy” probably? There is a plot to each story but they are quiet and heartfelt, and more about character. All the great moments come from emotional connection and the accumulation of small moments that make memory connections of events in the (sometimes very distant) past. It becomes clear, though long lived, Frieren has a lot of growing and capacity to do so, yet to go.

There is also a sprinkling of fantastic world building happening, albeit slowly and in a “soft” fashion.

This continues to be great. More action in this one. Quite a bit more, actually. I didn’t quite expect that but I’m still here for it. There’s slice of life quiet moments but the throwbacks to the previous journey and even further in her past, especially with regard to magic and its evolution, is really interesting and well executed.

Slightly worse than the first, if for no other than reason than to step into predictability and resorting to emotional manipulation because it didn’t feel like putting the work in for side characters, and then the characters become only relevant as to how they can interact with the characters arc.

Thorfinn becoming a pacifist is challenged, somewhat, though still feels flimsy. The resolution of the main conflict felt pretty good though. So it was a so-so ending to an arc, I’d say, overall. And then the tail end goes into an attempt at being funny again, which, again, doesn’t work at all, and actively undermines any emotional impact it would have had with a genuine moment. How it goes, I guess, in a manga.

Further interrogating agency in life through the lens of slavery, this maintains a much more compelling arc. The fights, though far fewer, have much more weight and still look great. And there is something new that the others didn’t really have: emotional investment from building out a solid character.

What does still bother me are the tonal shifts that manga is annoyingly seemingly always for. Cartoonish “funny” beats just feel out of place and juvenile. Either commit to the tone fostered or learn how to insert humour organically. It is jarring and feels entirely unnecessary.

It also distressingly is on a path where Thorfinn is radicalized all the way to naivety, believing there’s such a thing as no war and only peace. It’s confronted slightly when he has no choice but to fight. He sure takes a long time to figure stuff out, though. Hello! Your dad was a warrior too and thought fighting was worthwhile toward a different purpose. Having a come to heathen Jesus moment feels a bit trite. I just hope it’s there to have him navigate to something more nuanced and mature.